Conversations with the Dead
by ariel2me
Summary: As per title.


"Why didn't you tell me?" Death had not cured Robert from the habit of putting the blame on Stannis for anything that went wrong.

"You would have never believed me."

"I would if it was the truth, if you had shown me proof."

Stannis had to laugh. A mirthless laugh, full of bitterness. "If I had shown you Jaime and Cersei naked in bed together, you would have accused me of planning it, somehow. Plotting and scheming to put myself on the throne over your son. Who is not actually yours."

"Jon believed you. I would have believed Jon."

"Yes, you would have, just like you would have believed Ned Stark. But Jon Arryn was dead."

"So you decided to return to Dragonstone and sulk? Leaving me at the mercy of those Lannisters?"

"I was not sulking! And you had your precious Ned with you, finally, after all these years. What need did you have of me? He was your true brother. How often have I heard that from your own mouth?"

"So you blamed me for making Ned, and not you, my Hand. Still insisting you were not sulking?" Incredibly, Robert's features actually softened into a knowing smile. The smile faded quickly, however, to be replaced with a scowl. "You should have stayed at King's Landing. You could have saved me. I could have lived, and the realm would not be thrown into this long war. Countless lives could have been spared."

"Lies! All lies. What could I have done? I spent fifteen years by your side warning you of the dangers posed by the Lannisters, and you laughed at me, mocked me, never took my warnings seriously."

There was only silence from Robert.

"I could have done nothing!"

Still his brother said not a word.

"Still ignoring me, like you always did. Death has not changed you at all, Robert," Stannis scoffed. But he was speaking to an empty space, for Robert was no longer there. If he _had_ been there at all.

"Just like Robert, trying to steal everybody's thunder." It was Renly's voice. "If anyone has just cause to blame you for their death, it would be me, not Robert. After all, you _did_ shove the blade yourself, in my case."

"I was asleep when you died. My hands were clean when I woke," Stannis repeated the same words he had said to himself over and over again, since Renly died. "It was not my doing. You were fated to die. The Lady Melisandre saw it in her flames."

Renly laughed. "The shadow knows, Stannis. And I would know that shadow anywhere. It was you, or whatever monstrosity you created with that red priestess of yours."

"No!"

"Remember what you taught me, Stannis, when I was a boy? We must never tell a lie, even harmless ones. Because a lie told often enough might acquire an illusory sheen of truth, even for the teller of that lie himself."

"There is no lie here. We were at war; you would have killed me yourself."

Renly did not bother denying it. "Of course I would. But I would not have used sorcery to do it. We would have met in the field of battle, as we had agreed at the parley, and I would have defeated you. Decisively."

"You would have used whatever means you had at your disposal, sorcery included."

"And that excuses your crime? Your conviction that I would have done the same?"

"Why did you offer me the peach at the parley? Were you mocking me?"

"Why didn't you take it?"

"I did not come there to eat fruit!"

"Too bad, you should have eaten the peach then, before food and drink lost all taste for you. You look worse than I do, Stannis, and I have been dead for months."

"Why? Just tell me why. What did it mean, the peach?"

But like Robert, Renly was determined to deny Stannis an answer too. He was gone in the blink of an eye.

"Forgive me, Your Grace. I have failed you." Davos. It was Davos' voice, mournful and full of sorrow.

"No, my lord Hand. You were the only one who never failed me." _I'm the one who failed you_, he wanted to say, but the words would not come. There was so much he wanted to say to this man, so many questions he wanted to ask, but Davos was gone the quickest.

"No, no, no, come back! I still have need of you. Davos! Davos!" He searched the room frantically.

"You won't find what you are looking for out there, Stannis." Mother. It was his mother's voice. He held his hands over his ears. He could not bear it if she was to place the blame on him too. But he still heard it clearly, her voice. "Courage, true courage, can only be found within you."

"I am not afraid, Mother. I have never been afraid."

"Not of other people, no. You have never been afraid of others."

"Then why do I need to find courage?"

She was weeping. "You know why."

He shook his head adamantly. "I can't. It will destroy me, and everything I have fought for, everything I have always believed."

"Denying the truth is destroying you now."

"There must be another way. Tell me there is another way, Mother!"

His desperation must have driven her away. She was gone as well, just like Robert, Renly and Davos. He sank to his knees in despair. The dead cannot give you absolution, he told himself.

"But first you have to admit that there is a sin to atone for." It was his mother's voice, and Robert's voice, and Renly's voice as well. He looked up and saw their faces surrounding him. Tried to touch them, but his hands were only touching air. Tried to hold on to the sound of their voices, but they were drifting further and further away. The faces dissolved, blurring, and suddenly he was staring at his own face, not his dead mother, not his dead brothers.

"The most dangerous lies are the ones we tell to our own self." His voice. It was his own voice saying that. He could not feel his lips moving, but he heard those words nonetheless.

"Your Grace!" It was a different voice this time, a boy's voice, worried and insistent. Stannis opened his eyes, even though he could not recall closing them before. A different room. This was a different room. Bryen Farring's anxious face was staring at him.

A dream. It was only a dream, Stannis thought with relief. He was not mad.

"Should I call for the maester?" Bryen asked.

"No!" Stannis replied swiftly. The maester's potion would not soothe him to a dreamless sleep. Only Lady Melisandre had been able to do that, but she was not marching with them to Winterfell. She had stayed behind at the Wall. "You can go back to bed, Bryen. I have no need of you," Stannis told his squire.

Bryen was not ready to leave, however. "Is that why the Lord of Light did not save me? Because you have no more need of me?"

Stannis was startled. "Save you? What do you mean?"

"I was so cold. And hungry. But I never stopped believing, Your Grace." The boy's hand touching Stannis' arm was ablaze with flame.

Stannis stifled the urge to scream. "I know, Bryen," he said, sadly.

"Will you stay here with me? It is so cold and lonely, on my own."

Stannis pondered Bryen's request. He was tired, so very tired. _I have always done my duty. Perhaps it is my duty now to stay with him, this boy who died under my care, fighting my war. _

"I will pray for your safe return, Father." This voice was coming from a distance, barely above a whisper. Shireen, he suddenly remembered. He could not stay here with Bryen. His duty was to Shireen. He tried to reach her, failed, and tried again. And again.


End file.
